Plan for charter takeover of worst public schools crafted in secret | The Charlotte Observer

Plan for charter takeover of worst public schools crafted in secret | The Charlotte Observer:

Plan for charter takeover of worst public schools crafted in secret

N.C. Rep. Rob Bryan, a Mecklenburg Republican with a leadership role in education, has been working for weeks on a bill he hopes will eventually transform public schools.

It would start small, with a pilot Achievement District plan that would force five of North Carolina’s most persistently low-performing elementary schools to close or be taken over by charter operators. But Bryan hopes the trial will prove successful enough to inspire a bigger shift. He cites charter takeovers of district schools in New Orleans and Tennessee as models.

“I think the question is how long are kids allowed to be in failing schools,” he said Thursday.

THIS HAS ACTUALLY BEEN IN THE WORKS FOR A LONG TIME. IT JUST HASN’T BEEN ON THE PUBLIC RADAR.

State Rep. Rob Bryan, R-Mecklenburg

If you haven’t heard of this plan, it’s because the bill hasn’t been introduced or discussed in any public forum. There’s nothing about it in public records yet.

Instead, Bryan has been crafting his proposal behind closed doors, talking to lawmakers, educators and advocates of his choosing. In a process that has become common, he plans to substitute his bill for another one introduced in February, circumventing a spring deadline for introducing new legislation.

“This has actually been in the works for a long time. It just hasn’t been on the public radar,” Bryan said.

Chris Fitzsimon, executive director of the Raleigh-based N.C. Policy Watch, calls that process a travesty. He agrees with Bryan on only two points: The schools in question need help, and Bryan’s proposal could reshape public education.

“This is a fundamental change in the way public schools operate,” Fitzsimon said Friday. “To put this together behind the scenes, in secret, in the last few weeks of the legislative session is an outrage.”

If the bill passes and money is included in this year’s budget, the five schools targeted for takeover would be selected by Nov. 15. The handoff could take place as early as the 2016-17 school year, though the state Board of Education could choose to defer some until 2017-18 and others to 2018-19.

Tennessee and New Orleans

Bryan, a lawyer who chairs the House education appropriations committee and serves on the K-12 education committee, says he’s been talking with Gov. Bill Haslam and education officials in Tennessee, where an Achievement School District was launched three years ago. Twenty-nine schools in Nashville and Memphis will be part of that district this year, up from six the first year.

The charter operators that take over low-performing schools in Tennessee are charged with moving them from the bottom 5 percent to the top 25 percent in about five years. The staterecently released data for 2014-15, noting that students in the targeted schools “have earned double-digit gains in math and science proficiency and have grown faster than their state peers.”

Reading scores, however, declined, in the achievement schools and statewide.

Bryan called the latest numbers “on the whole, pretty impressive.”

But Tennessee education blogger Gary Rubenstein looked at the same data and calculated the percentile for the six schools that have been in the program for three years.

“Four ... are still in the bottom 5 percent while the other two have now ‘catapulted’ to the bottom 6 percent,” he concluded.

WE ARE NOT AWARE OF ANY OTHER DISTRICTS THAT HAVE MADE SUCH LARGE IMPROVEMENTS IN SUCH A SHORT TIME.

Researcher Douglas Harris on the post-Katrina charter takeover of New Orleans public schools

New Orleans has seen the nation’s biggest charter takeover. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, charter operators took over most of the schools from a district that had been among the nation’s most dysfunctional.

“New Orleans essentially erased its traditional school district and started over,” Tulane University Professor Douglas Harris writes in the fall 2015 edition of Education Next.

Harris, who is director of the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans, reports that the switch led to significant gains in student performance over the past decade: “We are not aware of any other districts that have made such large improvements in such a short time.”

But that doesn’t mean other locations can expect to replicate those results, Harris said: “There are good reasons to think the conditions were especially ripe for success in New Orleans: There was nowhere to go but up.”

How it would work

Bryan says his plan has been repeatedly revised: “I think we’re on version 26 now.”

Lindsay Wagner, a reporter for N.C. Policy Watch, reported on Bryan’s plan last month in aPlan for charter takeover of worst public schools crafted in secret | The Charlotte Observer:

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article30508572.html#storylink=cpy

CURMUDGUCATION: Fighting Democracy

CURMUDGUCATION: Fighting Democracy:

Fighting Democracy

There are two questions coming out of the discussions about New Orleans and its privatized school system.

1) Did student achievement actually improve?

2) If that improvement did happen, was it worth the price?

The answer to the first question is "Probably not" (though the careful secrecy and hoarding of data makes a definitive answer difficult), but we can still move on to the second question without a definitive answer to the first, because the price in NOLA was the suspension of "local control," which is another way to say "democracy."

On twitter and in the blogs, reformsters like to frame the struggle as one between the rights of students and the preservation of the institution. "I won't sacrifice the needs of students to preserve the privilege of the school system," is a familiar construction.

But the school system is an arm of democracy.

Granted, democracy has some problems these days. We can get angry about outside interests taking over the Douglas County school board (check out the new documentary Education, Inc for a closer look)-- but only 17% of the voters actually voted. Large cities like Chicago and New York have long since mastered the art of subverting democracy. And that's before we get to the areas where politicians have come up with new and creative ways to keep the non-white and the non-wealthy from voting.

But the solution to a problem of Not Enough Democracy is not Less Democracy.

When certain areas of the country worked to disenfranchise black citizens, the best solution, the right solution, the democratic solution was NOT for wealthy, connected folks from outside those CURMUDGUCATION: Fighting Democracy:

With A Brooklyn Accent: Underlying Conditions Which Give Traction to "Black Lives Matter"

With A Brooklyn Accent: Underlying Conditions Which Give Traction to "Black Lives Matter":

Underlying Conditions Which Give Traction to "Black Lives Matter"

Black Lives Matter, as a movement, emerged from police killings of unarmed Black men and women. But powerful underlying trends that have been around for some time give the movement traction. Among these trends are:

A drug war which has led to levels of incarceration of non-violent Black drug offenders which have destroyed entire communities and are utterly disproportionate to the actual role of African Americans in the nation's drug business.

The militarization of the nation's police, as a result of both the drug war and the "war on terror" which have led to young people of color being pinned into their own communities, and occasionally their own housing projects, by aggressive policing.

The widespread adoption of the "broken windows" theory of policing, reinforced by data driven methods of evaluation police performance, which lead police to aggressively confront people of color when walking, driving, taking public transportation, entering or leaving schools, if it appears that non violent With A Brooklyn Accent: Underlying Conditions Which Give Traction to "Black Lives Matter":

K-12 Connectivity Heatmap Shows State Schools in Need of More Bandwidth | EdTech Magazine

K-12 Connectivity Heatmap Shows State Schools in Need of More Bandwidth | EdTech Magazine:

K-12 Connectivity Heatmap Shows State Schools in Need of More Bandwidth

According to the report by CDW•G, 63 percent of schools don't have enough bandwidth to meet the current needs for digital learning.

A new K–12 connectivity heatmap shows which states are ahead of the broadband curve and which are lagging behind.

The data comes from a report by CDW•G, which surveyed 400 K-12 IT professionals about the connectivity of their schools. What emerged was an overview of the connectivity preparedness of schools across the nation.

According to the report, schools in Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington have the most connected classrooms.

The report also presents a few sobering facts about schools’ preparedness for a coming bandwidth crisis.

Of the schools surveyed, 63 percent don't have enough bandwidth to meet the current needs for digital learning, as outlined by the White House's ConnectED initiative. Last November, President Barack Obama touched on this statistic during the ConnectED to the Future summit.

“I’ve said before, in a country where we expect free Wi-Fi with our coffee, the least we can do is expect that our schools are properly wired,” Obama said.

The average school with connectivity has about as much throughput as the average American home, but the school’s connection serves 100 times as many users.

On top of that, bandwidth needs aren't slowing down. The growing importance of streaming video and always-on educational software has caused bandwidth demands to grow approximately 50 percent each year, according the report.

Along with the report, an infographic shows the chorus of technologies involved in connecting classrooms to secure, high-speed Internet connections.K-12 Connectivity Heatmap Shows State Schools in Need of More Bandwidth | EdTech Magazine:

L.A. Unified's 'teacher jail' policy ends up punishing students - LA Times

L.A. Unified's 'teacher jail' policy ends up punishing students - LA Times:

L.A. Unified's 'teacher jail' policy ends up punishing students

 In 2012, the entire 110-member staff of Miramonte Elementary School was pulled off campus after accusations of molestation were leveled at two teachers. Mark Berndt pleaded no contest to charges involving feeding semen-laced cookies to blindfolded students; charges against the second teacher were ultimately dropped (and he has since left the district). Everyone else spent the rest of the school year cooling their heels in a new, not-yet-opened school.

John Deasy, who was then superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, justified the move by saying he was concerned there might be a culture of sexual abuse at Miramonte. All staff files were scrutinized. But in only a couple of cases were there previous allegations of abuse; a few other teachers were found to have broken minor, unrelated rules, and most of the staff returned to Miramonte the following year.

At first this looked like nothing more than an honest effort to protect children, after Miramonte administrators had rebuffed earlier complaints. But it was the start of a troubling series of teacher suspensions at other schools that disrupted students' education and that notably did not involve their safety. These suspensions with pay during often lengthy investigations are known as “teacher jail”; teachers largely spend the time at home while substitutes who often are less qualified take their places.

With classes beginning Aug. 18, the many admirers of Hobart Elementary teacher Rafe Esquith are wondering whether he'll be there to greet a new batch of fifth-graders after four months in teacher jail. His case, and those of others before him, raise troubling questions about whether the teacher investigation system is causing too much disruption at L.A. Unified schools.

In 2014, two beloved teachers at separate high schools were reassigned to teacher jail for eight months over allegations of possible financial improprieties involving field trips. Both were finally returned to the classroom. That was also the year that a popular science teacher, who taught at the arts high school named for Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, was yanked from the classroom because two students had designed projects for a science fair that appeared to a couple of people as too similar to weaponry. (One project, a standard at science fairs across the country, was a milder version of a catapult-like invention that President Obama had tried out and praised at a White House science fair.) While he was in limbo, the teacher missed out on one of the most important months of the school year — the period of intense preparation for the Advanced Placement tests — replaced by a substitute who didn't know L.A. Unified's 'teacher jail' policy ends up punishing students - LA Times:

‘Kids Count’ Data: States Such as Texas and Arizona Have the Highest Youth-Population Growth Yet the Worst Outcomes for Kids - The Atlantic

‘Kids Count’ Data: States Such as Texas and Arizona Have the Highest Youth-Population Growth Yet the Worst Outcomes for Kids - The Atlantic:

More Kids, More Problems

Many of the states with the fastest-growing youth populations are also the ones that produce the weakest outcomes for kids.

It seems that America’s biggest nurseries are failing at their job.

Those “nurseries”—the states with the largest-growing youth populations—tend to produce the worst outcomes for kids, judged by such measures as high-school graduation, access to health insurance, and exposure to poverty. The states that produce the best outcomes for kids tend to be either stagnant or declining in their youth populations.

That means the United States is increasingly relying on the states that are most struggling—and often making the least effort—to equip their kids to succeed and ultimately build the country’s future workforce and consumers. “The fact that we have so many kids living in parts of the country where the outcomes aren’t as good … is something we are going to pay for later,” says the demographer Bill Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program who recently analyzed the youth-population trends for all 50 states.

These conclusions are based on a comparison of Frey’s analysis with the latestKids Count data book from the Annie E. Casey Foundation (which is among the sponsors for the series that produced this piece). The foundation ranks the condition of children in the states across 16 quantitative indicators in education, health, family, and the economy. From these individual assessments, it synthesizes a cumulative rank of well-being for children in each state.

States whose youth populations are growing the most tend to produce the worst outcomes for kids.

Comparing that ranking with Frey’s analysis—which looked at changes in the 20-and-younger population for each state between 2000 and 2014—produces results that are ominous for the nation’s future economic vitality and social stability.

The 15 states that the foundation ranked as producing the best outcomes for kids are mostly clustered in New England (New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut), the Midwest (Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin) and the mid-Atlantic (New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia). But in nine of the 15 highest-ranked states, the number of young people declined from 2000 through 2014, Frey found. Only in Utah and Virginia  did the number of young people increase by at least 5 percent.

Like this? Subscribe to the Atlantic Daily, a newsletter with stories, ideas, and images from The Atlantic.

The 15 states that Casey ranked as producing the worst outcomes for kids are clustered in the Sun Belt (ranging west from South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida to Texas, Nevada, and California) and the Appalachia region (West Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky). In nine of the 15 lowest-ranked states, the number of young people increased between 2000 and 2014. The increase reached double digits in six of those states.

Overall, nearly 37 million young people—representing 45 percent of Americans under 20—now live in the 15 states at the bottom of the Casey foundation list. Just 15 million youth, representing only 19 percent of that same age cohort, live in the top 15 states. Moving forward, this discrepancy may only widen: Of the 15 states that experienced the largest percentage increases in their youth populations, nine rank in the bottom 15 and just one is in its top 15.

Several chasms separate kids’ experiences across these states. For one, the share of children in poverty is lower than the national average (which was 22 percent in 2013) on all 15 states topping the list. Meanwhile, the share of children in poverty exceeds the national average in all 15 states at the bottom, including Texas (25 percent), Arizona (26 percent), and Georgia (27 percent). Results for high-school graduation rates and access to health insurance follow similar patterns.

Several chasms separates kids’ experiences across these states.

Another chasm that separates the highest and lowest-ranked states is diversity. Nonwhites represent a majority of kids under 20 in just two of the 15 highest-ranked states, while they account for a majority of the under-20 population in eight of the 15 lowest ranked states (including Georgia, Florida, Texas, and ‘Kids Count’ Data: States Such as Texas and Arizona Have the Highest Youth-Population Growth Yet the Worst Outcomes for Kids - The Atlantic:

THE LATEST FROM KIDS COUNT Data Center from the Annie E. Casey Foundation

KIDS COUNT Data Center from the Annie E. Casey Foundation:

KIDS COUNT Data Center from the Annie E. Casey Foundation:

Addicting Info – The Wizard Behind The Curtain: Citizens United Lawyer Behind Detroit’s Emergency Manager Laws

Addicting Info – The Wizard Behind The Curtain: Citizens United Lawyer Behind Detroit’s Emergency Manager Laws:

The Wizard Behind The Curtain: Citizens United Lawyer Behind Detroit’s Emergency Manager Laws

According to Richard McLellan’s Board of Trustees web page for Michigan State University’s College of Law, The Detroit Free Press once wrote:

“He’s seldom seen in the state Capitol, and less likely to be noticed. Take a look at someone who may well be the most influential person in Michigan you never heard of.”

You know all that negative talk folks get into, once in a while, about invisible illuminati-types actually running the world like puppet-masters from a dark ceiling above the stage? McLellan lends credit to that plausibility and is proud of it, boldly sharing the quote for all to see on his trustee page.

But Richard McLellan is not just influential behind the scenes in Michigan, where he envisions a “super agency” 20 years down the line, after busting up the Detroit Public Schools “monopoly” with school of choice programs and charter schools beginning under the Engler administration, he’s influential nationally, too, and his name is worth noting.

“Now,” McLellan stated in Nov., 2014, “the pendulum is swinging back to… much more control and command of Detroit schools,” and the same thing is happening on a larger, economic/political level across the country.

He has strong ties to the weakening of our democracy overall and certainly in Michigan, with a list of devious, notorious associates the likes of which John Dillinger would be envious. And he’s become the unsavory Gov. Rick Snyder’s go-to man in Michigan, as well, coming together in what should be known nationally as “The Great Michigan Public Schools Caper.” His work has contributed to lending democracy a death-stroke both nationally and locally and nowhere knows that better than Detroit.

(Image courtesy of Facebook)

McLellan’s professional and political career is lengthy. It is filled with affiliations and memberships to an assortment of organizations and posts, complete with accolades and friendly pats on the back, most of which you can get in a nutshell, here, as a starting point for further research, should you so desire. However, McLellan kicked off his career quickly by working for then Michigan Governor William Milliken as an administrative assistant after earning a BA from Michigan State University in 1964 and a law degree three years later from the University of Michigan. He’s been active in the Republican Party for decades. Even in his undergrad he worked as chairman for the MSU Romney Volunteers in 1962.

This guy is a system politician through and through – you know, the corrupt, twisted system everyone’s always complaining about? McLellan is the embodiment of that system. He’s helped uphold it and furthered its grip on the country for decades, yet many still don’t recognize his name.

How has he furthered the grip of our corrupt, racist system over the country and Michigan? Well, for starters, his law firm has extensively, time and again, represented both political candidates, and more specifically, their SuperPACS. McLellan’s also served on Sen. John McCain’s National Steering Committee of Lawyers back in 2008 and as Chairman of the Michigan Lawyers for Bush-Cheney in both 2000 and 2004. That should tell readers exactly which camp McLellan pitches his tent in. He is also a member of the Advisory Board for the Federalist Society’s Michigan Chapter, which according to its website is:

“…a group of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order. It is founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be. The Society seeks both to promote an awareness of these principles and to further their application through its activities.”

Wikipedia also states the Federalist Society is “one of the nation’s most influential legal organizations.”

“It has played a significant role in moving the national debate to the right on the Second Amendment,campaign finance regulation, state sovereignty, and the Commerce Clause.”

McLellan’s hammered his stakes in long ago.

Over the years, the puppeteer’s worked with a virtual who’s who list of the most loathed and least trusted politicians of the last 40 years, on both the state and national levels: from Gerald Ford to George H. W. Bush, John Engler to Bill Schuette, George Romneyto Rick Snyder, Colin Powell to Dick Cheney, John McCain to George W. Bush. McLellan’s worked with them all.

Now, McLellan works primarily as a lawyer at McLellan Law Offices PLLC, and is lauded with accolades such as “Lawyer of the Year” by such publications as Super Lawyers, The Best Lawyers in America, Lawyer’s Weekly and Law and Politics. Among other roles, he also keeps an adjunct position at MSU. In addition, he works with three public interest law firms, one of which is the infamous Mackinac Center for Public Policy – what Right Wing Watch calls “the largest conservative state-level policy think-tank in the nation.”

If that doesn’t speak volumes to you, start paying more attention.

McLellan isn’t just working with the Mackinac Center’s law firm, he is actually both a founding member and board member of the Center.

He gets more interesting than that, too, with ties both nationally to Citizens United, as well as the destruction of democracy in Michigan with the Emergency Manager laws and the dismantling of the public school systems, the ripples of which reverberate Addicting Info – The Wizard Behind The Curtain: Citizens United Lawyer Behind Detroit’s Emergency Manager Laws:

What Can We Learn from a Debate Over Pizza Parties in School? - Living in Dialogue

What Can We Learn from a Debate Over Pizza Parties in School? - Living in Dialogue:

What Can We Learn from a Debate Over Pizza Parties in School?

By John Thompson.

Before the test-driven, competition-driven school reform movement, educators had plenty of issues to argue over. We didn’t face nearly as many controversies that we had to fight over. Educators might occasionally express our opinions in an intemperate manner, but our disputes were no more divisive than the debates in other professions.

Some of our most forceful advocates have long claimed that education’s normative culture was so permissive that it could kill public schools. But, those jeremiads were largely rhetorical. Dissenters might be so livid about the allegedly progressive views that supposedly made us soft-headed that they would threaten to take their ball and go home. But, rarely would they become so angry that they would actually promote the destruction of public education and our values regarding the free exchange of ideas.

Over the last generation, however, persons who believe that the education “status quo” is too progressive, too soft-hearted, and too slow to shut down debates have often committed to the corporate reform ideology. Because of the claim that school systems are so irreparably broken, the accountability-driven movement has a twenty-year record of taking dramatic action, mandating top-down “transformative” reforms, and then considering the evidence afterwards. They’ve consciously and openly set out to destroy that status quo in the faith that “disruptive innovation” will magically replace the old system that was supposedly too rooted in progressivism.

A discussion in the Teacher’s Lounge recalls the debates of the pre-reform years. I read it as an illustration of what was and what remains good about the education culture that is now derided as the status quo.  It also offers insights into why some independent-minded educators, having failed to persuade the majority of their colleagues that they have a monopoly on the truth, turned to market-driven reform in order destroy the school cultures that they found wanting.

Henry Svec asked for teachers’ thoughts about throwing a pizza party for middle school students who get an A, but excluding those who do not reach that level. He hit a nerve and the question apparently prompted more than 1,200 responses. A wide variety of differing opinions were expressed, but Svec may be the only debater who believed that those who disagree with him are mortal enemies of public education.

The discourse over rewarding and punishing student performance started with examinations of the merits of external versus intrinsic motivation for learning and it led to an extended debate over the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) program (which is an increasingly popular approach for replacing suspensions to maintain order in schools). The exchange brought in consultants, as well as practitioners. Most posters seemed to embrace “shades of gray,” or nuanced ways to increase the benefits or reduce the unintended harm incentives and disincentives.

Some posters (like me) remain committed to authentic instruction and focusing on the joy of learning. We stressed the importance of teaching students to be inner-directed.  At the risk of being called “progressive,” we resisted behavioristic shortcuts that undermine the nurturing of internal loci of control.

Others, who seemed to represent the majority views, believed in grading as the appropriate accountability system. The grade, itself, might be seen as the reward. These educators speculated about ways of grading on What Can We Learn from a Debate Over Pizza Parties in School? - Living in Dialogue:

Pension rollback carries risk to teachers, schools :: SI&A Cabinet Report

Pension rollback carries risk to teachers, schools :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:

Pension rollback carries risk to teachers, schools

(Calif.) In addition to making a host of sweeping changes, a proposal aimed at curbing the cost of public pensions could create significant labor troubles for schools because teachers would no longer be free to carry their retirement benefits to new jobs in other districts.

According to analysis from the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, the Voter Empowerment Act of 2016 would also throw into question last year’s carefully crafted agreement to fully fund the teachers’ pension system, which had an unfunded liability of $73 billion as of June, 2012.

Opponents of the measure say it would destabilize the entire teacher pension system.

 “What is certain is that it would undermine the retirement security of our state's current and future teachers, particularly women,” said Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, in a statement last week.

“At a time when there already is a crisis in attracting and retaining teachers, this measure would be a major disincentive to attract our best and brightest to educate our children, and would cause irreparable harm to a system on which retirees and current teachers depend,” said Bonta, who authored AB 1469, which will adjust contributions rates through 2020 to help eliminate the unfunded liability.

Supporters of the measure, which include former San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and former San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio, say public pensions have become too costly and need to be reined in.

“Government union bosses are desperate to protect their gravy train at taxpayers’ expense,” the campaign said in a statement. “That’s why they are spinning a web of lies about the measure.”

They also pointed out that a recent evaluation from the non-partisan Legislative Analyst found that if adopted, the pension measure would reduce government cost “significantly in the future.”

The initiative is currently pending before the state Attorney General’s office, awaiting an official title and summary that would be used for the circulation of petitions. If the sponsors can get enough signatures, the measure would go before voters in November, 2016.

Although the measure will have specific impacts on schools, its overall reach includes retirement benefits to all employees of government agencies, both state and local levels.

Perhaps its most dynamic feature is the requirement that voters approve all increases to the value of a defined benefit pension offered by  government employers. If approved, workers hired after Jan. 1, 2019 would not be allowed to enroll in a new or existing defined pension plan unless the voters of the jurisdiction approved it, according to the LAO.

There is also a provision that voters must approve benefits in which the government employers pay more than half of the total cost. The LAO pointed out that if approved, the measure would require new government employees to pay one-half of all costs – both normal cost and unfunded liabilities.

Under current law, educator retirement is unified and administrated by CalSTRS with uniform eligibility requirements, vesting rules, benefit formulas, contribution rates, retirement ages, and beneficiary and survivorship allows.

The LAO noted there would also be significant ongoing uncertainties. Voter actions in individual jurisdictions would vary and thus compensation packages would likely be different from city to city, county to county and school district to school district.

According to the CalSTRS analysis of the proposed pension measure, the “portability” of benefits that teachers now enjoy when moving to new jobs in other parts of the state would be eliminated.

Under the new system, a veteran teacher that takes a job in a new district would be defined as a Pension rollback carries risk to teachers, schools :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:

State Shifts Regional Achievement Center into Camden School District - NJ Spotlight

State Shifts Regional Achievement Center into Camden School District - NJ Spotlight:

STATE SHIFTS REGIONAL ACHIEVEMENT CENTER INTO CAMDEN SCHOOL DISTRICT

NJ says the RACs, criticized by NJEA and other concerned parties, serve highest-need schools

The Christie administration has reconfigured its staffing to assist Camden public schools, as part of its general rethinking of how it will support New Jersey’s highest-need districts.

The state has moved a Regional Achievement Center – which was once a countywide or regional office – directly into the Camden public-school system. It will work exclusively with the more-than 20 district schools that are regarded as among the state’s lowest performing, officials said.

RELATED LINKS

LETTER OF COMPLAINT FROM NJEA

RESPONSE BY U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

The move is part of a new intervention strategy that the state pledged in the accountability plan approved this month by the federal Department of Education. This plan will provide differentiated support to state-run districts and will also extend to priority and focus schools statewide.

The state’s use of its RACs, once the centerpiece of the Christie administration’s accountability system -- especially in its highest-needs districts -- has been hotly contested.

The move has drawn complaints from school advocates and the New Jersey Education Association, the teachers union, for failing to follow the state’s original plan for the RACs. At the same time, the Christie administration is under intense pressure to follow through on its pledge to return Newark schools to local control, and questions have arisen as to what role the RACs would play in that process.

The Camden changes were disclosed last week in the third year of the RAC rollout, after what officials conceded was a tumultuous two years of the center working with the district that was taken over by the state in 2013.

In that time, the Camden RAC’s executive director quit, and the NJEA contended the office was doing virtually nothing with the district, despite the commitments approved by the Obama administration as part of its waiver under the No Child Left behind Act.

Assistant state commissioner Evo Popoff last week described it as a “feeling-out how the RACs were supposed to work in a place like Camden,” and he said the department had decided to move the office into the district itself.

That will mean three state-funded experts working directly with the administration-appointed Superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard. “They will largely work through the superintendent’s approach of how to turn around the schools in the district,” Popoff said.

When asked whether this would be the approach in other state-run districts, namely Newark and Paterson, Popoff in each case there would be a “customized” approach.

RELATED STORIES

FEDS: ADMINISTRATION CAN KEEP TARGETING 'PRIORITY' AND ‘FOCUS’ SCHOOLS

In Newark, the Education Law Center contested that the state-run district under former superintendent Cami Anderson didn’t involve them at all for the past three years, prompting a formal complaint to the federal Department of Education.

A similar complaint was filed in June by the NJEA and by its parent organization the National Education Association, contending that the state ignored its own plans to State Shifts Regional Achievement Center into Camden School District - NJ Spotlight:

New York experience shows Common Core tests can come at a cost for underprivileged students - The Hechinger Report

New York experience shows Common Core tests can come at a cost for underprivileged students - The Hechinger Report:

New York experience shows Common Core tests can come at a cost for underprivileged students

Low-income students, disabled students and English language learners show sharper declines than general population in Common Core high school algebra exam

There’s been a considerable debate in New York State about when to demand that high school students master the new Common Core standards as a requirement for graduation. The state began upgrading its traditional high school exams, known as the Regents, to the Common Core standards in 2014. But because teachers hadn’t been teaching the new Common Core material for very long, officials decided to give students a safety net:  they would continue to administer the old exam, along with the new Common Core exam, and the students could use whichever score was higher.

In the case of algebra, many students took both the old and new exams within a few weeks of each other during June 2014. And that created a wonderful laboratory experiment to see how these same students — most of them eighth and ninth graders —  did on these two different algebra tests. It also may have given us a troubling forecast for what tougher Common Core exams will reveal as they are administered in the rest of the country.

David Rubel, an educational consultant in New York City, examined the algebra testing data by different groups of students, and he noted an interesting pattern, in a discussion paper posted on his website. Higher-income students, and those without disabilities or English language barriers, passed the new Common Core exam at about the same rate as they passed the old exam. That’s not because they had instantly mastered the new Common Core material. But rather, as part of the transition to the Common Core standards, policy makers set the passing mark at place where at least 65 percent of all test takers would pass it, which is approximately the same percentage of students that had passed the algebra Regents exam in previous years. As a result, a student could pass the new Common Core exam by answering as few as 35 percent of the questions correctly.

Even with the bar this low, Rubel pointed out steep drops in the passing rate among three particular groups: low-income students, English language learners and disabled students.

For example, only 54 percent of low-income students passed the Common Core algebra exam in June 2014. But 64 percent of low-income students passedNew York experience shows Common Core tests can come at a cost for underprivileged students - The Hechinger Report:

The Collateral Consequences of the Crimes of Children - The Atlantic

The Collateral Consequences of the Crimes of Children - The Atlantic:

The Crimes of Children

The juvenile justice system was designed to “hide youthful errors from the full gaze of the public.” But the extra penalties attached to these sentences have ruined many lives.

Round Rock High School, just north of Austin in the Texas Hill Country, sprawls over 88 acres. It feels like a small liberal-arts college: There is a junior R.O.T.C. Training center. There are basketball courts, a gymnastics facility, a swimming pool, a football field, soccer fields, and a baseball diamond that, along its outfield fence, bears a faded sign commemorating the school’s 1997 state championship victory.

In January 2007, the principal called 17-year-old Jean Karlo Ponzanelli out of first-period history class and down to the office to join a waiting detective who took him to the local station for questioning. A girl he knew had run away from home and the police were curious about her whereabouts. They also suspected domestic abuse. (The girl declined a request for an interview, so her name has been withheld to protect her privacy.)

Ponzanelli had known this girl since the last day of 2005, when he attended a New Year’s Party at her home. “We go to the same high school,” he remembers her telling him in the kitchen.

“You’re in high school?” Ponzanelli asked.

Like this? Subscribe to the Atlantic Daily, a newsletter with stories, ideas, and images from The Atlantic.

Another partygoer asked her how old she was. “I’m 15,” she said.

After that, Ponzanelli and the girl drifted in the same suburban mix. He never ran into her in the hallways, but he’d often see her hanging out with his friends in the high-school parking lot at the end of the day. On occasion, she would call him and give a location and he would drive over. “Sometimes she had bruises on her face,” Ponzanelli said.

“We go to the same high school,” the girl told him in the kitchen. “You’re in high school?” Ponzanelli asked.

Ponzanelli said he couldn’t help the detective with her whereabouts that day. He hadn’t heard from the girl for some time. In the course of their meandering conversation, though, the Round Rock Police Department gathered another piece of information: Ponzanelli and the girl had had sex three times. On the first two occasions, the officer calculated, Ponzanelli had been 16 and she’d been 13. In Texas, sex with a minor younger than 14 is a first-degree felony.

A week later, when Ponzanelli walked out of the same first-period history class, he says waiting police officers cuffed him, bent him over the hood of their car, searched his backpack, loaded him into the back seat, and drove off to the county jail in Georgetown 10 miles north. The felony complaint, signed on January 19, 2007, states that the defendant “confessed to knowing the victim was 13 years old and still having sex with her anyway.”

Although the girl’s mother called for leniency, Ponzanelli was charged with aggravated sexual assault. When the state offered him the lesser charge of attempted sexual assault, he accepted the plea deal. But the crime was still a third-degree felony, and as a result, it came with mandatory jail time. He The Collateral Consequences of the Crimes of Children - The Atlantic:

Healthy Eaters, Strong Minds: What School Gardens Teach Kids : The Salt : NPR

Healthy Eaters, Strong Minds: What School Gardens Teach Kids : The Salt : NPR:

Healthy Eaters, Strong Minds: What School Gardens Teach Kids

Tall brick walls conceal a colorful garden at Eastern Senior High School in Washington, D.C., where students like Romario Bramwell, 17, harvest flowers and produce. The program is run by City Blossoms, a nonprofit that brings gardens to urban areas.

Lydia Thompson/NPR

School is still out for the summer, but at Eastern Senior High School in Washington, D.C., students are hard at work – outdoors.

In a garden filled with flowers and beds bursting with vegetables and herbs, nearly a dozen teenagers are harvesting vegetables for the weekend's farmers market.

Roshawn Little is going into her junior year at Eastern, and has been working in this garden for three years now. "I didn't really like bugs or dirt," Little says, thinking back to when she got started. "Well, I still don't really like bugs, but I like the dirt," she laughs. She gathers a hand full of greens, yanks from the stem and pulls up a baseball-sized beet.

During the summer, Little gets paid to work Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. with City Blossoms, a nonprofit that brings community gardens to schools, community centers and other places where kids gather in urban areas.

Little believes that working in the garden has taught her to try all sorts of new things — like eating different kinds of vegetables more often. And she's taken those healthy behaviors home with her. Little brings home vegetables from the garden, and she says her eating habits have encouraged her family to buy more fruits and vegetables.

Yanci Flores (left) and Roshawn Little harvest beets from the garden at Eastern Senior High School on July 17.

Lydia Thompson/NPR

"We're a chubby family and we love to eat. Well, I do," she adds with a laugh. "We mainly live around liquor stores and snack stores. There aren't that many grocery stores. They're way out and you have to drive so far" – a common problem in low-income urban areas. "It seems so pointless, when there are snack stores right there," she says.

City Blossoms is one of many groups across the country teaming up with local communities to install school gardens, like the one at Eastern, in areas with low access